IVSO to perform Copland and present the winners of the Young Performers Competition

LASALLE — Lucia Matos, conductor of the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra, invites the public to IVSO’s fourth concert of its season featuring selected ballet pieces from composers, Aaron Copland and Charles Gounod. The concert will also include solo performances by the winners of the IVSO’s Young Performers Competition.

The concert will be at 4 p.m. March 9 in the LaSalle-Peru High School auditorium. The concert is sponsored by season sponsors Central Radio Group, Miller Group Charitable Trust and LaSalle State Bank.

Born in 1900, Aaron Copland was one of the most important figures in American music during the second quarter of the 20th century. He composed music for theater, ballet and films, as well as for concert situations. In his ballets, “Rodeo” and “Appalachian Spring,” he made use of folk melodies and relaxed his previous style to arrive at a sound more broadly recognized as “American.”

Charles Gounod’s opera “Faust” uses as the subject matter the love affair between a young woman Gretchen and an aged philosopher Faust. First staged in 1859, the opera was performed more than 2,000 times by the Paris Théatre-Lyrique alone within a time span of 50 years. “Faust” was the opera chosen to open the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1883. The IVSO performs five short ballet pieces from Gounod’s “Faust.”

Johnson will perform the “Concertino for Flute, Op. 107” by composer Cecile Chaminade. Johnson, a 12th-grade homeschooled student, has studied flute with Sue Gillio for the past 11 years. She is the daughter of Tim and Linda Johnson of Ottawa.

Sommer will perform the “Violin Concerto in G, Allegro” by composer Georg Phillipp Teleman. Sommer, is a seventh-grader at John F. Kennedy School and has studied violin with Katherine Roy through the Music School in Oglesby for six years. She is the daughter of William and Amy Sommer of Spring Valley.

Tickets available online at IVSO website, www.ivso.org, and at the door. Admission is $12 for adults, $5 for students in K-college with identification; and season subscribers. LaSalle-Peru auditorium is handicapped accessible. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Valley Fine Arts Trust and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.